24 November 2023
Slow mode engaged
Ochanomizu and Nakano
Time for the long day before the long flight. The key is to do everything slowly, walk, eat, urinate etc.
First of all, it is best to stay in your hotel until checkout time, and shower just before you checkout, and apply various oils and lotions to your entire body. Then, due to a really hot day, it is important to try not to sweat, for many many hours.
To try and kill time and not sweat I decided to go to Ochanomizu to look at guitar related things, and then to Nakano to look at whatever they had, which turned out to be cats.
Right now I am typing this in Haneda airport, too early to check in, using their free wifi. I took quite a few boring pics today, so more text below.
First pic of the day is just a random corner in Akihabara as I walked past to demonstrate that the weather is clear blue sky and really hot, 23c today I think.
A train went overhead.
I was late enough that the guitar stores in Ochanomizu were open, I had some pocky to celebrate.
The synergy preamp modules at the end are really rare, I used to have an amp head that used them.
This seems to be the big thing everyone is advertising in guitar shop world lately.
It was interesting (to me) to see that they list the weight of each identical guitar, and that the weights vary quite a bit.
Big Boss is still the place to order custom made ESP guitars, but they no longer have all the strange solid gold crucifix and diamond encrusted ones on display, still some of these cost about $13k
Nakano now, here is the covered shopping street leading to the braodway, will this be the last covered shopping street photo? Very probably.
But wait, what is this strange architecturally designed wooden jungle area?
Oh hello.
These 3 never really moved from the glass, they were very interested in puppies barking down stairs.
There were 8 cats available for annoying.
Some are the useless variety with corgi legs.
Random cat.
There was some fighting going on, probably spurred on by me, but it is hard to photograph.
Also a lot of sleeping.
OK no more cat photos.
Time for the broadway, which is 4 levels of shops selling mainly secondhand collectables.
I like the headphone shops more so than the schoolgirl figurines.
Also if you missed fushimi inari shring in Kyoto, do not panic, there is one here.
It was now time to go and sit in the park and re hydrate, the park was strangely busy for a Friday afternoon.
The reason seems to be the nearby purple sweet potato festival, which is more of an Okinawa thing.
The back streets of Nakano have some really good eating places, I would like to stay in Nakano on a future trip as it is on the train line to the mountains, and closer to the mountains than Ueno or Shinjuku.
For the last pic taken in Tokyo other than the airport, 3 trains and a river.